ISLAMABAD: A judge of the Lahore High Court (LHC) moved the Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday seeking an open trial of a reference being heard against him by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), a constitutional body that scrutinises conduct of superior court judges.
Justice Muhammad Farrukh Khan was named in the Panama Papers leaks in 2016 for owning an offshore company. After the revelation, the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) had announced that it would boycott the judge until he got his name cleared of the charges.
The application filed by Advocate Hamid Khan on behalf of Justice Khan names the federation and SJC as respondents.
In the petition, the judge has urged the top court to declare SJC Procedure of Inquiry 2005 unconstitutional. He asked the court to halt proceedings of the reference before SJC until the court decides his petition.
The council cannot act on an application which apparently does not include documents and evidence, he maintained in the petition.
The development comes just days after a five-member bench of the apex court took up a petition filed by Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court (IHC).
Justice Siddiqui, too, is seeking open trial by the SJC hearing a reference against him on misconduct.
He has questioned paragraph 13 of SJC Procedure of Inquiry 2005 which deals with in-camera proceedings by saying that the section is in violation of Articles 4, 10A, 18 and 25 of the Constitution because it does not allow trial before the council to take place in accordance with the law.
